World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, English
munching biscuits. One of them had the upper half of his head blown off,
scattering the blood and brains over his chum, who escaped without a
scratch.
I reached the gun pit about one minute after the explosion. God in
Heaven! What a sight met my eyes! The floor of the pit was strewn with
the men in all directions, six of them dead and the balance fearfully
wounded. I dashed out for stretcher bearers and Fritz just then started
increasing his fire; he had kept an eye on the men running through the
trench to the gun pit. He therefore knew that there must be a nest of us
there.
In spite of the gain in the enemy's gunfire, we started our wounded pals
to the officers' dugouts; most of the lads had been so severely
shell-shocked that we had a most trying time to keep them in their
stretchers. Men who have been shell-shocked most usually exhibit it by
wanting to run off in all directions; I have seen them with wounds that
ordinarily would cause them to collapse, but under the influence of the
shock exert themselves with such strength and violence that it would
take a couple of sturdy men to hold them. There is a trite saying that
every disadvantage has a corresponding advantage and I wondered that
night when I got back to the gun pit if nature intended that the
advantage from this disaster was the increase in our supper ration due
to the death and wounding of my soldier pals!
A few days after, we were notified we were going to drive forward
another stage, and I went to the trench with the telephonist party for
the purpose of making our communication as clear as possible; I was
detailed especially to assist the Captain in this work.
The attack was launched at daybreak, with a ten-minute bombardment
preceding, and then our fellows were up and over. As before, the tanks
blazed the way, one of them passing about 30 feet to my right just
before I went over the top. As I lay in the trench, the darling old
titan passed me, leveling the wire in front, and I had then an even
keener realization of what it meant for Fritz to have these monsters
piling over and smashing him under foot just about as a man would tread
on a worm and mash it. And if there ever was one time during my entire
three years of campaigning, when I felt an atom of sympathy for the
gray-clad devils, it was at that moment.
But how can sympathy obtain for devils in human form?
My immediate family was strongly represented in this attack. To my right
among the men who went over, were the Canadian Grenadier Guards, of
which my young brother Billy was a member. This regiment had made an
undying place in the annals of Canadian history in the advance on
Courcelette, having out of its 950 men but 66 men left intact when the
roll was called after the battle, the balance being either killed or
wounded. But they achieved their objective, Courcelette!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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